Future of this site part II

For any staff member who doesn't have access to the testing site (or a regular member), here is a screenshot of the new Wiki. Me and Chiisana still haven't decided what to do with the original, but try and back up anything you want, just in case you want to post it on the new one/keep it/post it elsewhere.

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To follow up on this, the current idea is that current wiki will be converted to a read-only wiki, and a more integrated wiki will try to fill the current wiki's place over time. We are not sure if we will try to make it a clone of the current wiki, or an easier to manage item database, or a mixture of both. But we hope having a more integrated wiki would help bring in more active editing/contributions.

For the new forums, would you like Facebook Connect added in? FBC is basically another way to register. (It takes less time as well)

I'm sorry guys, this was pitched horribly...
I wanted to find out about the question of registration rate, and I guess I didn't communicate clearly to Darkstar. My bad.

We are interested to find out if alternative registration methods allowing people to register more quickly would help us get more users. We believe that having more users register (easier and more quickly) can in turn drive up the post counts.

The confusion must have came because the new forum software we are looking to use, currently only have Facebook Connect built in. Once the initial transfer is complete, we can most certainly look into developing more (Google accounts, Yahoo accounts, AIM, etc.) after the initial stage.

Do you guys agree that something like this will help us get more people to participate more actively?

I'm sorry guys, this was pitched horribly...
I wanted to find out about the question of registration rate, and I guess I didn't communicate clearly to Darkstar. My bad.

We are interested to find out if alternative registration methods allowing people to register more quickly would help us get more users. We believe that having more users register (easier and more quickly) can in turn drive up the post counts.

The confusion must have came because the new forum software we are looking to use, currently only have Facebook Connect built in. Once the initial transfer is complete, we can most certainly look into developing more (Google accounts, Yahoo accounts, AIM, etc.) after the initial stage.

Do you guys agree that something like this will help us get more people to participate more actively?

I think that if someone is too lazy to actually register, but needs a FB Connect to motivate them to do so, will probably not be interested enough to be active. The only benefit I can see is that it'll raise the number of users.

I think that if someone is too lazy to actually register, but needs a FB Connect to motivate them to do so, will probably not be interested enough to be active. The only benefit I can see is that it'll raise the number of users.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Anything that makes it easier for new members to register is a good thing. Forums are not just made up of the superstar posters. They just aren't enough to sustain a community by themselves, as evidenced by what SSA has become. You need the less-active members as well. Registering for every freakin thing on the web is a pain. Making that process easier is a good thing.

Reputation: Possibly converted into XF's "Like" system (Positive reputation is turned into likes), similar to Facebook's "Like", and Twitter/Google Reader's "Star". Some what silly of a name, but overall, I think people will enjoy it more.

If this thing is positive-only, applied to the post and not the poster, similar to Facebook likes, I think it'd be worth trying out.

To follow up on this, the current idea is that current wiki will be converted to a read-only wiki, and a more integrated wiki will try to fill the current wiki's place over time. We are not sure if we will try to make it a clone of the current wiki, or an easier to manage item database, or a mixture of both. But we hope having a more integrated wiki would help bring in more active editing/contributions.

I don't think we need to start yet ANOTHER DFO wiki from scratch. Either keep the current wiki or ditch it completely. If you are concerned about wiki spam, you can disable normal wiki registration and only manually register people interested in contributing.

Looks better already. Now either change the terrible font in the banner or get an entirely new one.

It's still not going to look great, but there's not much you can do about that unless you do more than just change a few colors of Xenforo's default skin.

The main reason I'm not changing much of the skin right now is because there are usually significant changes to the skin every update, due to the software just getting out of beta. These changes break the skin, so I'm waiting until the software is more stable in terms of design.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Anything that makes it easier for new members to register is a good thing. Forums are not just made up of the superstar posters. They just aren't enough to sustain a community by themselves, as evidenced by what SSA has become. You need the less-active members as well. Registering for every freakin thing on the web is a pain. Making that process easier is a good thing.
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I guess it's a matter of degree then. When Vindictus was in CB, someone was giving out free codes. All of those people that made accounts just to get the codes never came back or posted again. That's the degree I was talking about.

The main reason I'm not changing much of the skin right now is because there are usually significant changes to the skin every update, due to the software just getting out of beta. These changes break the skin, so I'm waiting until the software is more stable in terms of design.

Custom skins often require some changes after upgrades, especially major ones, in any forum software. XenForo just went gold a couple of months ago, so there shouldn't be any major updates for a while. Obviously you may have to make some minor changes now and then, but that's your job as the designer.

Custom skins often require some changes after upgrades, especially major ones, in any forum software. XenForo just went gold a couple of months ago, so there shouldn't be any major updates for a while. Obviously you may have to make some minor changes now and then, but that's your job as the designer.

Which I understand, but if you read some of my previous posts, you would see that its still very much a work in progress.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Anything that makes it easier for new members to register is a good thing. Forums are not just made up of the superstar posters. They just aren't enough to sustain a community by themselves, as evidenced by what SSA has become. You need the less-active members as well. Registering for every freakin thing on the web is a pain. Making that process easier is a good thing.

That's my impression, too. I have also worked out Twitter authentication... expect both to be available on launch. In the next week or so, I'll also work on a "social network free" alternative style for those that wish to have nothing to do with them. Will probably be the best of both worlds.

If this thing is positive-only, applied to the post and not the poster, similar to Facebook likes, I think it'd be worth trying out.

It is positive-only (no dislike button like the rubber stamp I have). But there are some bragging rights values as the system keeps track of running totals of likes you've received. If the general consensus is we don't like it, we can definitely disable it all together, or limit it to only the staff (so it is actually some form of reinforcement on good standards we observe).

I don't think we need to start yet ANOTHER DFO wiki from scratch. Either keep the current wiki or ditch it completely. If you are concerned about wiki spam, you can disable normal wiki registration and only manually register people interested in contributing.

The idea is not so much to have yet another DFO wiki, but to slowly port information from the old one to a more integrated one so that we can have more active contributions. I'm not sure if the idea will fly, but I feel that maintaining a separate MediaWiki installation (software updates, etc.), might be a little bit too much work for me, hence the read-only mode... I suspect we can play with the idea for a bit and scrap it if it doesn't take off

I guess it's a matter of degree then. When Vindictus was in CB, someone was giving out free codes. All of those people that made accounts just to get the codes never came back or posted again. That's the degree I was talking about.

I agree there are the standard hit-and-run kind of issues. And we can work around that by moving these kind of topics to separate forums where it require certain post count and or even registration date period before people can request for them. If that is the only concern against simpler registration process, I don't foresee serious or hard to address problems then

Looks better already. Now either change the terrible font in the banner or get an entirely new one.

It's still not going to look great, but there's not much you can do about that unless you do more than just change a few colors of Xenforo's default skin.

Thanks for your feedback and 30 seconds worth of photoshop. The adjustments demonstrated are very valuable to the improvement of the style, and we will most certainly take that into consideration. Please bear in mind that the style is an early work in progress, and so there is still much to desire for. However, we expect things to evolve progressively over time. Unlike other network sites, we do not have a disposable style that we can just magically reapply and perform minor changes for each of the new sites, so we have to start simple first